Youth In Revolt
By: Amy Nicholson
America’s sweetheart Michael Cera wears training wheels—or really, a training mustache—in his first attempt to go bad. Half bad, at least. In Miguel Arteta’s comedy (based on the great series by novelist C.D. Payne), Cera plays Nick Twisp, a stuttering virgin who adopts a roguish split personality named Francois Dillinger to win over his lady love Sheeni (Portia Doubleday). Light, comic, and less black than the books, this is a fun piece of fluff that melts away like cotton candy. It helps that Arteta has assembled a standout character actor cast. The grownups plaguing Nick’s life are his divorced pop (Steve Buscemi), mom (Jean Smart), mom’s first boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) and her second (Ray Liotta). (Dad’s girlfriend Estelle (Ari Graynor) doesn’t count cause she’s just a few years out of high school.) Man-crazy mom makes a family vacation to an RV park super awkward—her trailer’s rockin‘. But the hell trip is worth it when Nick meets his equally pretentious dreamgirl Sheeni. Sure, her parents are religious middlebrows who own a two-story trailer—the better to fit in their pipe organ—but Nick is this close to losing his V-card, which means when the vacation is over, he’s got to find a way back to their hick town and fast. Enter Francois. He’s a mustachioed rebel who does the things Nick shudders to do—like scheme to get evicted from home. But his girl is worse and might be using him as a tool to get closer to her other boyfriend Trent (Jonathan B. Wright), a 6’7” poet who has 40 pounds of muscle and fluency in French on the slim, stuttering Twisp. (And if she is still chasing Trent, Nick’s new passion project is sabotaging her life.) As the cigarette-smoking Francois, Cera is hilariously wicked—he needs to do eight more roles like this before he takes on another nervous nerd in a hoodie. (Though Cera whacking off, the opening scene, still makes my head explode.) Payne’s book is more epic and shameless than Gustin Nash’s tidy adaptation, which focuses more on Nick’s virginity problem than his need to top everyone with the wildest stunt. Sex is too conventional a goal for the kid willing to dress like a church girl named Carlotta if it’ll get him in Sheeni’s front door. With Fred Willard as Nick’s ultra-leftist neighbor and Justin Long as Sheeni’s older brother who invites everyone on a clichéd, but fun, wild mushroom ride.
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